“What about the general security cameras?”

Mona gives him a confused look. He doesn’t blame her. She’s had plenty of distractions of late, and the station’s been forced to augment and improve what systems they can without consulting her every step of the way. If they don’t get a new building soon, the place is going to end up looking like the Winchester Mystery House.

“We have general security cameras now?” she asks.

“We added three in the main room after the brawl last month.”

“Do we have one on the entrance to the interview room?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure we covered the spot where the hallway enters the main room.”

“Well, shit.”

A few seconds later, Luke’s sitting at Mona’s desk as he accesses the station’s general security system cameras.

“I should know this,” Mona whispers.

“You’ve been busy.”

“Well, I won’t be for much longer.”

Luke stops typing, turns to face her. “What does that mean?”

“He says he wants to let me off the hook. For good.”

Luke spins in the desk chair. “He’s breaking up with you?”

“He’s not putting it like that. He says he doesn’t want me to suffer, too. His mom says he’s lost faith he’s going to recover and I should ignore him, but . . . I don’t want to talk about it. I need a distraction. Right now, it’s Lacey Shannon.”

The very thing Cole Graydon told me to let go. Awesome.

A few seconds later, he’s found the archived footage of the night in question on all three general cameras. He runs them simultaneously, but they’re slightly out of sync with each other, which makes him a little dizzy.

They’ve got Lacey’s sudden entrance, the alarmed looks it earned from just about everyone in the station.

They’ve got Luke and Henricks leading her to the short hallway that connects to the interview room.

He can’t fast-forward all three at once, so he picks the best angle on the hallway and advances to the moment when he came striding into the main room with Henricks nipping at his heels. Then he keeps fast-forwarding, watching as the clock at the bottom of the square advances past 9:40, 9:45, 9:50 . . .

When Henricks appears, alone, the two of them both sit back. Henricks turns down the hallway toward the interview room.

“Is that a hundred percent?” Luke asks.

“Pretty much. But I want to see her come out.”

“Not going to be easy to tell what expression’s on her face given how beat up it is.”

“True, but still.”

A few seconds later, head bowed, chewing on the thumbnail of her right hand, Lacey Shannon rounds the corner into the main room. She looks unsteady on her feet, and Luke wonders for a second if maybe she really was drunk. Her shoulder brushes the large potted plant next to her, then she looks toward the main room as if she’s embarrassed by her collision with the ficus and wants to make sure nobody noticed it.

Luke was right—her black eyes make it impossible to read her expression.

Henricks doesn’t appear behind her. But that makes sense. He knew about the cameras. No doubt he was holding back so he wouldn’t look like the one driving her away. There’s a restroom at the end of that hallway he could claim he was using. But he’d never be able to deny shutting the interview room camera off. Maybe that’s why he quit.

Then Luke sees something that makes him go rigid.

Mona doesn’t see it, however. She’s just shaking her head at the screen.

With a mouse click, he closes the video.

Shame will follow at some point, he realizes. But right now he feels nothing but adrenaline, and this rush empowers a slew of rationalizations for what he’s just done. He’s protecting Mona from something she doesn’t understand. He’s protecting the whole department, small and strapped as it is, from something that could overwhelm its resources in the blink of an eye.

“That’s all saved, right?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

But you’ve got no idea how to access the archive, and that’s a good thing, he thinks. Then he realizes the reason she can’t navigate the system is because she’s been so busy caring for her sick boyfriend, and his exhilaration turns to shame. Well, that was quick, he thinks.

“All right,” Mona finally says, “I’m gonna keep looking for Lacey. I’m gonna operate on the belief that Henricks freaked her into running and she’s out there somewhere.”

“If she is, what do you think she’s going to say?”

“I don’t need to get involved in her relationship issues. If Jordy shoved her into a ditch, and she’s running, good. But I need her to confirm Henricks is the reason she walked.”

“In case Henricks tries to bring a suit or something?”

“Yeah, or in case I need to see if I’ve got others like him inside my station.”

Luke just stares at her.

“Christ, I’m not talking about you, Luke.”

His stomach feels like it’s got a clenching fist in the middle of it. But he just nods.

“Thanks for coming in,” she says. “This cleared up a lot of . . .” Just then her cell phone rings, and he can tell who’s calling the minute he sees her expression as she looks at the screen.